


Blue Dress, Maybe

by starrelia



Series: Colours [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cisgender, M/M, Memory Alterations, Mental Breakdown, memory problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7329661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrelia/pseuds/starrelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack doesn’t keep mementos, or maybe he just doesn’t remember it.<br/>Ever since the Sentinel, his mind’s been a bit fragmented. There’s too much he knows.</p><p>or,</p><p>Timothy finds a blue dress, and Jack breaks down a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Dress, Maybe

There are a lot of mementos that Jack has kept around in his suite—most he doesn’t remember keeping. Not at all, actually; his memory is fragmented, full of information that he can’t tell has happened or not. He knows about the Destroyer – more than he expects, from the Sentinel; about dimensions and monsters, about mistakes, about… - and he can separate what has happened and what hasn’t when it comes to the Destroyer.

But with Angel? With Angel, he sits and wonders and stares at his hands. He sees her with her hands wrapped around his throat, shrieking at him. He sees her cradling him and begging him to live. He sees her in a big room full of monitors, attached to something large over her head. He doesn’t see her childhood.

The picture of Angel he has is facedown; because he looks at her face and sees a muddled mess of eyes, mouth and nose and Jack doesn’t want to see her face ruined like this. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t even remember if he even did take care of her when she was still a kid. Jack remembers her mother—vividly. The Sentinel has nothing to say about that; she’s dead, in everything he sees, and she’s dead even now.

His mind is a fragmented mess of several futures and different pasts, and Jack doesn’t remember the mementos he keeps in his suite. He never looks for them, never really recognises them, and he’s fine that way if someone is to ask.

No one will, because no one will ever live with him.

 

 

[Timothy kind of throws a wrench in his quiet, unspoken assumption.]

* * *

They’re cleaning the rooms out when Timothy comes back from one of the Edens [not Eden-2; nothing ever happens there, and Jack avoids sending Timothy there] because, well, he tells Jack he needs to feel clean and he doesn’t know why.

Doesn’t ask, either. There’s something harrowing about the way Timothy looks at his hands and Jack doesn’t have the time to ask – _‘or the guts,’_ a once forgotten voice in his head says – and, besides, Jack likes cleanliness too.

So he doesn’t mind cleaning up his place himself. The C134N3R-bots still need to be repaired because of some idiot’s mishap and Jack’s been neglecting cleaning duty because work piles and piles up, and he forgets a lot of things he needs to do.

(His secretary, Meg, has to remind him to eat. He says he has already eaten and whenever she asks when Jack can only say _a week ago, pumpkin._ )

So when Timothy stops responding to him altogether, quiet and in another room – one of the guest rooms, abandoned and mostly full of junk or so Jack thinks – he can’t help but get agitated and go over to find him.

“Okay, pumpkin, what’s the hold—” he says, ready to yell, but he’s stopped by the sight of Timothy holding up a small, petite, blue dress. It’s too small to be a woman’s—too short, obviously belonging to a little girl, and Jack stares at it for a while.

 _‘Where did I get that?’_ he thinks, hands gripping the door frame tightly. His hands tremble, knuckles becoming considerably pale, and Timothy has been looking up at him since his entry. “Jack?” he begins, “is this Angel’s? It’s really cute—what’s it doing here?”

“I don’t remember.” Jack answers, his grip getting impossibly tighter on the door frames and Timothy’s eyes finally flicker over to them, wide and surprised. “Where’d you—where was—where was the dress? Where’d you find it?” he says, the words spilling out of him quickly and in jumbled messes, and Timothy’s quiet. “Timmy, _sweetheart,_ where the hell—why was this dress here? Angel’s…” _‘how old is Angel, anyway? When’s her birthday? I think it was two months ago.’_ “Angel’s not a kid. What’s it doing here?”

Timothy shifts and furrows his brow. “Jack, you- you put it here.” Timothy says, slowly, and he rises just as slowly as his words. The blue dress is still in his hands.

“I threw that in the trash!” Jack yells, stumbles back, and – he did throw it in the trash, didn’t he? He swears he did. “It should have a tear on it.” When Timothy looks it over with a furrowed brow, Jack thinks he wants to puke.

“There’s no tear.”

“It should have one!” Jack’s voice gets louder, then quiets down. “It… should? It tore when she was younger. She couldn’t use it anymore.” But it’s in Timothy’s hand, perfectly fine and kept away in his guest closet. “What’s it… doing here?”

His gaze is blurry. “Wait. Where’s my girl?” he chokes on his own words, legs shaking and trembling. “Where’s—where’s my girl? Is she on Pandora? Did I send her out to Pandora? We need to get her back— shit. _Shit, no._ She’s here, right? She’s—where’s my girl?”

He’s babbling. His head hurts like a bitch. Where’s Angel?

Timothy’s staring at him with wide eyes, but he doesn’t _get it._ He doesn’t keep mementos—he thinks. He – he thinks he doesn’t keep mementos. But Angel’s childhood dress is in Timothy’s hands.

What’s it doing here? He threw it away when Angel hit ten.

He crumbles to the floor and Timothy drops the dress onto the guest bed and falls in front of Jack. Ever so carefully, gently, he kisses Jack’s knuckles and uncurls his hands from the door frame and holds him close, and he presses his masked face into his smooth neck.

“I’ll finish cleaning up,” Timothy says after a moment or so of silence, his fingers intertwining with Jack’s as he holds both his hands and lets him grip and clench as hard as he wants. “I think _you_ need to sleep.”

At the harsh and commanding tone of his voice, Jack growls and finally—finally snaps out of it and shoves himself away from Timothy. He stumbles as he stands, nearly slips and falls on his ass, but Timothy doesn’t even seem that bothered as Jack backs away on shakily, aching legs. “You _do not_ tell **me** what to do!” Jack barks out and Timothy just rolls his eyes and stands up to shove him out of the guest room.

“ _Leave._ ” Timothy says, imitating Jack in a way far too eerie right now, but he grits his teeth and leaves him alone at the command.

* * *

Jack doesn’t know what he does for an hour or so before Timothy comes back. He thinks he fell asleep, and waking up now means that his head is clearer and things aren’t jumbled together. Jack can actually  _think_ normally, comprehend what is and isn’t real, what has yet to happen, and his shoulders slump when he sees Timothy slide in to sit across him on the sofa.

“Hey.” Timothy says, looking tired but fine, and Jack stares at his face, searching for something that shows he’s angry, mad, anything. Something that will spark an argument. Something that will let Jack yell.

But he’s calm and Jack slumps again. “I couldn’t remember a damn thing.” Jack says and Timothy looks at him from the corner of his eyes. “Freakin’—too much in my head at once, and I was tired, okay? Don’t laugh at me.”

Timothy doesn’t laugh; he shakes his head, instead, and looks up at the ceiling. “Let’s go out to eat.” He says instead of berating Jack and he jolts in surprise. “I’m feeling… seafood. You wanna eat some seafood? I really want seafood. No clue why.”

“Eh.” Jack looks at the clock on the wall. “I haven’t eaten since like shit o’clock in the morning, so y’know what? Let’s go out—my treat! After all, who wants to charge me, huh?! Double the terror!”

When he gets up, already dressed, he looks over to Timothy and sees a small smile on his face and immediately looks forward to ignore the warmth in his eyes.

He hates that Timothy has his face and his body, but nothing about him screams Jack. He doesn’t have to suffer from too much knowledge, and he doesn’t have to be the CEO.

 

 

Jack hates that.

It’s awfully refreshing.


End file.
